Type of Credit: Elective
Credit(s)
Number of Students
This is a course for graduate students who are interested in doing ethnographic research with a focus on the topics of labor and migration in the digital age. Students with or without background knowledge of contemporary China are welcome to take this course. This course examines the scales and practices of migration and labor in the digital media era with an intensive focus on domestic and transnational migration in China. In order to enrich the depth and comparison of case studies, this course will also cover a few ethnographic cases from other East Asian countries. This course, in particular, focuses on the impacts of the internet, smartphones, websites, and social media on interpersonal and intercultural communication and networks in the context of migration. It covers the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of digital labor, platform economy, gig economy, digital working-class, affective labor, and precarity in the fields of anthropology, applied economics, sociology, and communication. The class will also read the books and ethnographies which, in particular, focus on rural-to-urban migration, return migration, suzhi discourse, gender politics, migrant networks, family ties, class differentiation, and digital labor.
能力項目說明
| 教學週次Course Week | 彈性補充教學週次Flexible Supplemental Instruction Week | 彈性補充教學類別Flexible Supplemental Instruction Type |
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週次
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課程主題
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課程內容與指定閱讀
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教學活動與作業
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學習 投入時間 |
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課堂講授 |
課程前後 |
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1 |
Introduction |
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3 |
2 |
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2 |
Labor, Ideology and Political Economy in the Age of Social Media |
Fuchs, Christian 2015 Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media. New York: Routledge. [Read] Chapter 3: Communication, Ideology, and Labour Chapter 4: Social Media and Labour Time
Terranova, Tiziana 2000 Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy. Social Text 18(2): 33-58. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions
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3 |
6 |
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3 |
Platform Economy and Sharing Economy |
Chen, Julie Yujie and Ping Sun 2020 Temporal Arbitrage, Fragmented Rush, and Opportunistic Behaviors: The Labor Politics of Time in the Platform Economy. New Media and Society 22(11): 1561-1579.
Vallas, Steven and Juliet B. Schor 2020 What Do Platforms Do? Understanding the Gig Economy. Annual Review of Sociology 46: 273-294.
Ravenelle, Alexandrea J. 2019 Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy. Oakland: University of California Press. Chapter 1: Strugglers, Strivers and Success Stories. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions
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3 |
9 |
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4 |
Digital Labor, Exploitation and Informational Capitalism |
Fuchs, Christian 2014 Digital Labor and Karl Marx. London: Routledge. [Read] Chapter 11: Theorizing Digital Labour on Social Media.
Brophy, Enda and Greig De Peuter 2018 Labors of Mobility: Communicative Capitalism and the Smartphone Cybertariat. In Theories of the Mobile Internet: Materialities and Imaginaries. Andrew Herman, Jan Hadlaw and Thom Swiss, eds. Pp. 60-86. London: Routledge.
De Kosnik, Abigail 2013 Fandom as Free Labor. In Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory. Trebor Scholz, ed. Pp. 98-111. New York: Routledge.
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Lecture; group presentations; discussions
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3 |
9 |
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5 |
Labor, Precarity and (Dis)empowerment |
Han, Clara 2018 Precarity, Precariousness, and Vulnerability. Annual Review of Anthropology 47: 331-343.
Fang, I-Chieh 2018 Precarity, Guanxi and the Informal Economy of Peasant Workers in Contemporary China. In Industrial Labor on the Margins of Capitalism: Precarity, Class and the Neoliberal Subject. Chris Hann and Jonathan Parry, eds. Pp. 265-288. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Millar, Kathleen 2014 The Precarious Present: Wageless Labor and Disrupted Life in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Cultural Anthropology 29(1): 32-53. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 |
9 |
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6 |
Digital Working Class, Labor and Migrants in China |
Sun, Ping 2019 Your Order, Their Labor: An Exploration of Algorithms and Laboring on Food Delivery Platforms in China. Chinese Journal of Communication 12(3): 308-323.
Qiu, Jack Linchuan 2018 China’s Digital Working Class and Circuits of Labor. Communication and the Public 3(1): 5-18.
Chen, Julie Yujie 2017 Thrown Under the Bus and Outrunning It! The Logic of Didi and Taxi Drivers’ Labour and Activism in the On-demand Economy. New Media & Society 20(8): 2691-2711.
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Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 |
9 |
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7 |
Workshop: Doing Digital Ethnographic Research |
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3 |
9 |
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8 |
Female Migrant Labor, Suzhi Discourse and Self-Development |
Pun, Ngai 2016 Migrant Labor in China: Post-socialist Transformations. Cambridge: Polity Press. Chapter 5: Spatial Politics: Production and Social Production of the Dormitory Labor Regime.
Yu, Haiqing 2019 The Enterprising Self: Disability and Digital Entrepreneurship in China. In Digital Transactions in Asia. Adrian Athique and Emma Baulch, eds. London: Routledge.
Kipnis, Andrew 2007 Neoliberalism Reified: Suzhi Discourse and Tropes of Neoliberalism in the People’s Republic of China. Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute 13(2): 383-400. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 |
9 |
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9 |
Migrant Youth, Return Migration and Homelands |
Ling, Minhua 2019 The Inconvenient Generation: Migrant Youth Coming of Age on Shanghai’s Edge. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Chapter 5: To Go Home or Not.
La, Hai Anh La and Suiwah Leung 2012 Remittances from Migrants: Experience of Vietnamese Households. Journal of Vietnamese Studies 7(4): 10-31.
Pido, Eric J. 2017 Migrant Returns: Manila, Development, and Transnational Connectivity. Durham: Duke University Press. Chapter 2: The Foreign Local: Balikbayans, Overseas Filipino Workers and the Return Economy. Chapter 5: The Balikbayan House: The Precarity of Return Migrant Homes. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 |
9 |
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10 |
Migrants, Gender Politics and Affective Labor |
Wallis, Cara 2018 Domestic Workers and the Affective Dimensions of Communicative Empowerment. Communication, Culture, and Critique 11(2): 213-230.
Peng, Y. 2017 Affective Networks: How WeChat Enhances Tencent’s Digital Business Governance. Chinese Journal of Communication 10(3): 264-278.
Ip, Penn Tsz Ting 2017 Desiring Singlehood? Rural Migrant Women and Affective Labour in the Shanghai Beauty Parlour Industry. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 18(4): 558-580.
Woodcock, Jamie and Mark R. Johnson 2019 The Affective Labor and Performance of Live Streaming on Twitch.tv. Television and New Media 20(8): 813-823. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 |
9 |
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11 |
Skill, Brokerage, Ethnicity and State Policy |
Tseng, Yen-Fen 2021 Becoming Global Talent? Taiwanese White-collar Migrants in Japan. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 47(10): 2288-2304.
Lan, Pei-Chia 2011 White Privilege, Language Capital and Cultural Ghettoisation: Western High-Skilled Migrants in Taiwan." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 37(10): 1669-1693.
Stovel, Katherine and Lynette Shaw 2012 Brokerage. Annual Review of Sociology 38: 139-158. |
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12 |
Migrants, Gender and Technomobility |
Wallis, Cara 2013 Technomobility in China: Young Migrant Women and Mobile Phones. Introduction: Mobile Bodies, Mobile Technologies and Immobile Mobility. Chapter 1: Market Reforms, Global Linkages and (Dis)continuity in Postsocialist China. Chapter 2: “My First Big Urban Purchase”: Mobile Technologies and Modern Subjectivities. Chapter 3: Navigating Mobile Networks of Sociality and Intimacy.
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Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 |
9 |
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13 |
Digital Labor, Gig Economy and Algorithms |
Rosenbalt, Alex 2018 Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work. Chapter 1: Driving as Glamorous Labor. Chapter 2: Motivations to Drive.
Seaver, Nick 2017 Algorithms as Culture: Some Tactics for the Ethnography of Algorithmic Systems. Big Data and Society 4(2).
Bucher, Taina 2017 The Algorithmic Imaginary: Exploring the Ordinary Affects of Facebook Algorithms. Information, Communication and Society 20(1): 30-44. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 |
9 |
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14 |
Gender, Digital Labor and Digital Economy |
Lukács, Gabriella 2020 Invisibility by Design: Women and Labor in Japan's Digital Economy. Durham: Duke University Press.
Chapter 1: Disidentifications: Women, Photography and Everyday Patriarchy. Chapter 2: The Labor of Cute: Net Idols in the Digital Economy. Chapter 3: Career Porn: Blogging and the Good Life.
Sun, Wanning 2012 Amateur Photography as Self-Ethnography: China’s Rural Migrant Workers and the Question of Digital-political Literacy. Media International Australia 145: 135-144. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 |
9 |
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15 |
Migration, Transnational Family and Care |
Francisco-Menchavez, Valerie 2018 The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Introduction: Filipinos transnational Families and New Caring Strategies. Chapter 2: Skype Mothers and Facebook Children. Chapter 3: Communities of Care.
Lim, Sun Sun 2020 Transcendent Parenting: Raising Children in the Digital Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 1: Transcendent Parenting and the Media-Rich Household. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 |
9 |
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16 |
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Final Project Presentations |
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17 |
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(no class) review course materials and write up final papers |
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18 |
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(no class) review course materials and write up final papers |
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Term Grade: 100 %
Class Attendance/Participation/Discussion (total 10%)
Discussion Questions (total 12%)
Article Presentations (5 times, each 4%) (total 20%)
Response Papers to the required readings (4 times, each 5%) (total 20%)
Response Paper to the Invited Speakers’ Talks (1 paper, 5%) (total 5%)
Final Project Presentation (8%)
Final Written Paper (25%)
[Required Text] 指定書目
Fuchs, Christian
2014 Digital Labor and Karl Marx. London: Routledge.
2015 Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media. New York: Routledge.
Ling, Minhua
2019 The Inconvenient Generation: Migrant Youth Coming of Age on Shanghai’s Edge.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Francisco-Menchavez, Valerie
2018 The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Wallis, Cara
2013 Technomobility in China: Young Migrant Women and Mobile Phones. New York:
NYU Press.
Agrawa, Ravi
2018 India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World's Largest Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cabalquinto, Earvin Charles B.
2022 (Im)mobile Homes: Family Life at a Distance in the Age of Mobile Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chan, Lik Sam
2021 The Politics of Dating APPs: Gender, Sexuality and Emergent Public in Urban China. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Enriquez, Falina
2022 The Costs of the Gig Economy: Musical Entrepreneurs and the Cultural Politics of Inequality in Northeastern Brazil. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Kwon, June Hee
2022 Borderland Dreams: The Transnational Lives of Korean Chinese Workers. Durham: Duke University Press.
Miller, Daniel, Laila Abed Rabho, and Patrick Awondo
2021 The Global Smartphone: Beyond a Youth Technology. London: UCL Press.
Öhman, Carl
2024 The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hargittai, Eszter
2022 Connected in Isolation: Digital Privilege in Unsettled Times. Cambridge: The MIT Press.